


Scribble Scribble, Lots of Bother

by Ononymous



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Post-Undertale Pacifist Route
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:40:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25630720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ononymous/pseuds/Ononymous
Summary: A passionate artist can put a bit of themselves into whatever they create. When this leaves the realm of metaphor, troubles emerge. Sorry.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6





	Scribble Scribble, Lots of Bother

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CoramDeo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoramDeo/gifts).



In a distant corner of a building, half emulating classical style, half brutalist extension, well off the beaten track the public normally used, lay a series of rooms in the classical segment serving as offices. At the end of the oaken corridor these rooms were located at, indifferent to clashing echoes from elsewhere in the building, was a room whose resemblance to the library of a Renaissance University was somewhat tarnished by a cheap plastic table instead of the wooden fortification one would expect, and a computer instead of a typewriter. In this room a woman was pinching the bridge of her nose, right at the indent where glasses normally rested. Not for the first time that day she sighed, then replaced her glasses and picked up one of the two steaming cups on the table to take a sip. Taking gentle hold of her wrinkled chin, her eyes moved from the second completely full cup to who it had been offered, whose hands were clutching his knees like he feared his legs would drop off.

"Well then, Mister... Um..."

"Sorry, ma'am."

"You are sorry? For what happened?"

"Oh, sorry. I didn't mean I'm sorry, I meant I'm Sorry. So Sorry. And, uh, sorry too."

Her cup, on the way back to the table, returned to her lips to give her time to parse what he said. Honestly, it wasn't the strangest name she'd come across. A museum curator needed to appreciate other perspectives after all. The main thing out of place in this meeting so far was the tail swishing back and forth, brushing dust from the axminster rug. Semantics straight in her head, she took another sigh and put down the cup.

"Mister Sorry," she said, consulting some notes, "you should know I've already contacted your ruler. I'm not sure if I was speaking with the king himself, but whoever they were sounded even more guilty than you do. He should be here soon. So is our attorney. How we deal with this will depend with my meeting with him."

His long ears dipped below his small beret. "Yes, Mrs Eagna."

"I suppose I'm curious," she continued, "and that curiosity is why you are here. Your whole posture suggests this isn't what you had in mind."

"Absolutely! But, um, if I had intended it I'd still feel bad. About being a jerk, I mean."

"Hmm." She rearranged the stack of papers. "So then, can you explain? I've a good idea of what I've seen, but I need a little more why."

"Oh, the why, I can give that." He met her eyes for the first time. "I got too excited about this, that's why."

The embers of confidence in So's voice quickly vanished as no understanding appeared on her face. He finally released his squat knees to attempt to fuse his fingers together.

"'Why' may have been the wrong word," she said. "Maybe 'how' is more appropriate?"

"Oh. Sorry."

"Let me try and get everything straight." Mrs Eagna took another drink of her coffee. "Monsters emerging from Mount Ebott. Peaceful, for the most part. It makes sense to me in one framework: An entirely new culture to learn about. That's the ideal of a museum, demonstrate examples of culture and history, near and far."

His eyes disappeared beneath the brim of his beret, while the steam rising from his untouched coffee began to dissipate. "Th-that's what I heard."

"Dethre Museum was fortunate to think of this first, I still believe, after the treaty was signed. A temporary exhibition of monster history. Artifacts, centuries old in some cases, to give people the beginnings of understanding about you. And all authenticated." She picked up a piece of paper with a hastily written note and a doodle of a wax seal on it. "Mister Gerson gave us fascinating stories behind most of them. The wooden Alpha Emblem was surprisingly popular."

So Sorry looked like he was about to speak, but thought better of it, his narrow nose wrinkled in thought.

"With the past represented," she continued, "it was logical we'd think about the present. There is always some overlap, but we were no interested in examples of monster art. Preferably recent."

"That's what Asgore said." He still wouldn't look at her again. "And I wanted to contribute! So I opened my artbook to pick a few pictures, but... well, I thought they were trash." He waited for comment slightly too long. "Then I thought and I thought, and I heard Second Rock In The Ruins talk about bringing their camera when we were moving out of the mountain, and that's when I had an idea: Pictures of the surface!"

Mrs Eagna leaned forward slightly, her hand pushing back some grey hair. "And I agree, Mister Sorry. One culture's perception of another culture they have little exposure to. It's not an angle given much thought, even in most museums."

He finally looked up once more. "Exactly! I mean, I didn't really think about it like that, but I wanted to be unique. So I grabbed my supplies, and sat just outside the exit from the mountain and I drew what I saw! I worked really hard on it and... and I bet everyone hated it."

"Hated it? Did you show it to anyone?"

"...no. But they'd have hated it, I just knew. I wanted to give up. But a little voice said I shouldn't. And then my inner voice said I shouldn't. And so I tried again. And it sucked. But I tried again, I wanted it to look good, and I got so excited, that's why it happened!"

She noticed how his posture un-sagged while discussing his work. Far more an historian than an art expert, she still felt the need for more information. "Again, Mister Sorry, I think I need the how."

"Oh. Right. Well, when I get excited..." he reached into a pocket of his vest with his yellow hands, "I sometimes use these."

'These' were a set of ordinary looking pencils. Every reasonable colour, of varying lengths, all looked sharpened as if brand new. She took one from his open pack and examined it, looking like a standard writing pencil.

"And what would happen if I used this?" she asked.

"Uh, nothing special, sorry. Humans can't work them right. But they work well with me."

"With you?" She adjusted her glasses. "You mean the abilities I've heard monsters have?"

"Yes, magic," he said, retrieving his pencil and putting it back in the pack. "I can't do it with human pencils, they'd fall underground sometimes, but with my own set, if I get too excited and put a little juice in... Well, sorry again, ma'am."

The room fell silent for a while, safe for muffled echoes still coming from elsewhere in the museum. They were growing quieter, however. Mrs Eagna finished her coffee. She was keenly aware of how much she felt like a principal at the moment.

"I believe that establishes the 'how', Mister Sorry. But now I need another 'how'."

"Another 'how'?"

"'How much'."

"Oh. Well, at last I was pleased with how the mountain view went, so I went down into the valley and drew some more pictures. Of trees, of a lake, of a roadsign, and most of them weren't very good, but I liked a few. But then I got the idea to go to a zoo..."

"Ah." She pressed her own hands together. "I pieced together you might have."

"They're harder to do. They don't hold still even if you ask or promise you'll be their friend. But I liked what I drew. Most of it. Some of it. A bit of it. But I finally had some pictures. But I'd been drawing so much, the other art had already gone to the museum, so I panicked, took the bus and got lost for a while, but I found directions and reached the museum just as the other art arrived in a truck, so I ran after it and told the people unloading it that a few things got missed. I was so excited for the exhibit. Um... too excited..."

He twiddled his broad thumbs, having run out of explanation. Mrs Eagna returned to the notes on her desk and picked up a sheet of paper.

"My security offer reports the first strange occurrence was a breeze. He had the doors closed, but the breeze still came, and grew stronger. It took a while for anyone to accept it, but eventually the source was determined to be from your picture from the mountaintop. Mountaintops can be very windy, you see."

"...yeah, I realised when I saw the crowd. I'm sorry."

"And then water started lapping around their feet. And leaves floating on top."

He sighed with remorse. "That was probably the lake. I thought drawing right at the shoreline was a good idea. I tried to fix that, draw a little dam on the picture while nobody was looking..."

"And that..." she grabbed a different sheet. "Is when the first roaring sounds were heard."

True silence fell on the room for the first time. There was no background noise of shouting coming from elsewhere in the building. Mrs Eagna's visitor seemed to shrink slightly, retreating into his chair as far as possible, the tail still swishing in agitation.

"It's not often we have to call animal control. A fox got into the garbage, sometimes. But patrons fleeing the exhibit hall to get away from a tiger?"

"I'm sorry!" he accidentally double-meaned. "I wanted to practice getting the stripes right!"

"Well, you did. The lion wasn't as shocking as it could have been, seeing how its front legs were half as long as you'd think."

"I started them too low on the page, I had to squeeze them in."

"I saw the flocks of birds myself. And that one monkey with gorilla arms. And the alligator too. You did a good job, except its tail was kind of small, and smooth..." She leaned over to look past him. "It's familiar, come to think of it."

"...it was under the water, I couldn't see it. I had to use my own as a reference."

"I have to ask. Was anyone in danger from being bitten?"

"...probably not. I'm not good at capturing my subject's state of mind yet, they normally just run around. And I tried to stop them! I can normally put them back in the picture if I can grab them, but they were too fast. Well, I got the lion at least."

She sighed. "I appreciate that, Mister Sorry. But what about the elephant the size of a horse?"

"Well, I didn't wanna get stepped on, you'd be surprised how heavy a drawing can be. So I thought I could get it to hold still a moment. I remember seeing on TV that they're scared of mice, so I whipped out my sketchbook and drew some-"

"And that explains the bellowing trumpet and the smashed doors all the way from the industry exhibition to the paleontology display."

"...yeah. But all that running around at least used up its energy, so it disappeared faster."

"Not before knocking the head off the skeleton of a tyrannosaurus and smashing it. You're lucky we keep the real thing in storage to preserve it, but it's not cheap even to make a replica on short notice."

"I know. I've made a mess, and I didn't mean too, and I don't know what else to say."

"That you're sorry?" For the first time, she smiled. "Our attorney is bringing a copy of the treaty along to make sure, but I doubt this is a case warranting that we involve the police. You have caused damage here though, I literally cannot afford to overlook that. Donors don't like paying for vandalism, regardless of accidental nature or not. Either you or your King will probably be on the hook. And I suppose we're a valuable lesson in looking a little harder before we leap. We're not used to watching out for magic just yet."

"I'm sorry," he said yet again. "Is there anything I could do to make it up to you?"

"Short of writing a cheque right now, probably not. Unless monsters could make a dinosaur skull on short notice."

"Oh, I can!"

He pulled out his sketchbook and got off his chair for the first time, paying rapt attention to the now cold cup of coffee he never touched. Taking one of his pencils he started drawing rapidly, like he was trying to finish homework before school was about to start. After a couple of minutes he plunged his hand into the paper like a sink full of water, the hand not emerging on the other side, and pulled out a cup very much like the one on the desk. The only real difference was the floral pattern wasn't quite as detailed. He handed it to her to examine.

"If it's an inanimate object, I can make it last a few weeks," he said, "at least until you can get a solid one. Show me some pictures and I should be able to make it pretty close! Means you wouldn't have to get rid of the exhibit, right? I wanna make it up to you."

She felt how distinctly normal the cup was while his mask of eagerness threatened to collapse into self criticism again. She tapped it on the desk, it behaved as one expected. Would liquid wash away the drawing? Unless their roof collapsed that wouldn't matter for paleontology. And that skeleton was always a pull for younger kids. It would be a shame to close it off.

"We'll talk damages first. Then we can move on to community service, okay?"

"Okay! Oh, sorry, that was too much."

"It's fine." A sharp knock came on the door. "Hmm, that sounds like our attorney has arrived." A much softer and polite knock accompanied it. "And I assume that's the king. Let's sort this out."

One heavily contrite meeting and a day spent in an art restoration studio later, the skeleton was wowing the public of Dethre once again, children happily making roaring sounds that would have been pathetic compared to what had happened on that day. The wowing was slightly different however. Mrs Eagna knew she wouldn't have gotten an exact duplicate, that's what the King's gold was paying for after all, but the oddly flat teeth, far more omnivorous than carnivorous, very few fangs, and the fact they were arranged in what she could only describe as a lazy grin, led her to suspect that So Sorry had relied on another reference.

**Author's Note:**

> Original suggestion: Or maybe a "So Sorry" and magic pencil story? Just for example, his pictures are on display at a local art museum. When they come to life and wreak havoc, his attempts to fix the problem with more magic-pencil drawings only make things worse. He is so sorry.
> 
> Let me know what you think, and thanks for reading!


End file.
